If the forthcoming UK referendum comes out in favour of the UK withdrawing from the EU then what happens to existing 'Treaties' with the EU? One would assume that they are instantly worthless and unenforceable, although, with countries such as Spain, 'Gunboat Diplomacy' would not be unforseen; they are not going to lightly give up advantages won under very dubious / questionnable circumstances in the 1970's

Take for instance the long running sore of The Common Fisheries Policy - presumably that becomes void and the UK reverts back to the status quo prior to joining the EEC?

Just to recap on the history of this 'con' by the EEC ....

The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP)

Immediately prior to Norway and the UK applying for membership of the E.E.C. in 1970, the six original members drew up Council Regulation, 2141/70, giving each other ‘equal access’ to each other's fishing waters. As none of the existing members had any fishing waters worth talking about, this could only ever have been a calculated attempt at sequestering the assets of new applicants in a 'land/waters grab' - quite apart from illegal it was also blackmail by the EEC

The underlying reason for Regulation, 2141/70, was that approximately 70-80% of the ‘European’ fish stocks were to be found within UK National Waters and as a new member of the EEC Britain would have to accept all existing European Legislation.

New EU applicants have to negotiate on the basis of the 'acquis communautaire' - in other words, existing legislation, and the CFP had to be hastily put together in order for the EU to illegally capitalise on the benefits of other new member states

A point worth noting is Council Regulation, 2141/70, was only adopted on the morning of 30 June, the day the British application for membership was made

However, no valid negotiation can ever take place on the basis of illegality and therefore the CFP was effectively a licence for illegal fishing by exiting EU countries

UK Politics

One additional factor was the willingness of Edward Heath and UK politicians to ignore British interests in pursuit of their political ideals.

In October 1971, Geoffrey Rippon, Britain’s chief negotiator stated ‘.. one thing is certain . . . we should not sign a Treaty of Accession which would commit us to the present fisheries policy..’

A number of Ministers at the time, made a similar statements and MPs voted on accession to the treaty during a debate in which the passage relating to fisheries was NOT published; so the debate was on flawed principles engineered by those who drew up the debate topic.

On 22 January 1972 Edward Heath signed up regardless of UK interests and more for personal glory

Legality of the Regulation

During the first 22 years of its existence the CFP was completely illegal; according to the EEC's own laws

None of the Articles quoted in the treaty, numbers 7, 42, 43 and 235 mention fisheries.

Article 38 is usually quoted as the source but was, in actual fact, left out of the regulation in the haste to draw it up.

Finally, authorisation was retrospectively inserted into Article 3 of the Treaty of Maastricht!

Implementation

As with most EU matters the UK implements the CFP absolutely to the letter of the law, whereas others, most notably Spain, do not do not adopt the same vigilance and allow their nationals a free rein in these matters; especially if they are in Spains National Interest. But then most of the members take this approach and only the UK seems to follow the rules

Regulation of each nation’s fishing vessels is left to that nation itself and Spain has very few fisheries inspectors who spend most of their time in Madrid, some way from the sea. The result is that Spanish vessels are lightly regulated, if indeed any actual regulation takes place at all, which seems unlikely, but 'par for the course'

This 'Spanish' practice was so widespread that when 1995 the Canadians boarded a Spanish ship, the Estai, they caught her concealing an illegal catch in a secret hold, with a fraudulent log book.

Impact of the CEP on the UK

The UK provides 70%-80% of the fishing waters and accordingly are the main losers in this arrangement; whilst others over fish and take advantage of the situation at every opportunity and to the detriment of the UK's own fishermen

Addendum

Norway subsequently passed a law that limited the size of vessels allowed into the 6 to 12 mile zone; which was a double blow to the British deep sea trawlers in the light of the fact that they had given up their own fishing grounds. Although, in the end Norway did not join

WELL THE UK WANTS THEIR FISHING GROUNDS RETURNED

AFTER THEY WERE ORIGINALLY ILLEGALLY STOLEN BY THE EU

The passage of time can never ratify an initial illegal act, however, much the EU would like this to be the case. Moreover, why has no-one taken this illegal act to the European Court and voided all subsequent legislation on this subject after the EU's original illegality?

Furthemore, the CFP needs to be declared void; all member state fishing in UK waters must cease immediately and damages paid to the UK in the form of the value of each members annual catch from these waters since the date the CFP was invoked (1971), together with interest on all monies here mentioned (all these figures should be easily available from EU records)

The message is very simple - Crime Does Not Pay - Not even EEC sponsored illegal acts!

With this in mind the EU cannot surely be surprised at the UK antipathy and reluctance to engage - after all the EU behaved disgracefully AND ILLEGALLY at the outset when the UK applied to join the EEC; so they have actually brought it on themselves and never really addressed the issue with any intention of 'righting the original wrong'

‘.. decisions should be taken as closely as possible to the citizens of the Union in accordance with Article 5 (ex Article 3b) of the EC Treaty ..’

'.. The main condition for embarking on Community action is set out in the second paragraph of Article 5 of the EC Treaty, which states that the Community shall take action:

"only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved by the Community".

The Protocol cites three criteria for judging whether this condition has been fulfilled:

does the action have transnational aspects that cannot be satisfactorily regulated by the Member States?

would action by Member States or lack of action conflict with the requirements of the Treaty?

The reality of the situation is that in a number of instances the EU has completely ignored the principle of Subsidiarity in attempts to vest in itself greater powers than it actually has; by forcing through policies that are dictated at Union level rather than ratified at membership level

This is bullying by those ivory towers and in no way adheres to the principles of Subsidiarity - but then we have always know that the EU has one set of rules for themselves and another for member states

We hear that the German Bundesbank has plans to repatriate a large chunk of its overseas gold holdings (post 1945) back to Berlin in a decision ratified by the German Government last September; currently 69% is held outside Germany and only the US holds more gold reserves than Germany

This in turn, raises the interesting historic issue of the gold reserves of the Third Reich which is an entire subject matter on its own, although it has no bearing on the current situation, because Germany's current gold reserves do not relate to gold from the pre-1945 era

The mechanics of the arrangement are that 300 tonnes of gold from the Federal Reserve in New York and all of Germany's gold stored at the Banque de France in Paris, 374 tonnes, will be returned to Frankfurt

This move suggests that Germany does not trust other central banks to hold it's gold and more importantly, questions whether Germany has underlying doubts about the value of the Euro. Therefore repatriating the gold brings control directly back under Germany's sphere of influence

However, the interesting aspect of the whole arrangement is that ALL Germany's gold held by France is being removed, whilst some of their gold remains in the US and the Bank of England

According to the FT:

'.. we don’t think it’s too much of a wild speculation to suggest that in the event of a euro break-up, Germans would feel much more jumpy about France holding a chunk of their gold hostage, than the US or the UK ..'

Interesting in these times where the UK is being pilloried by the rest of Europe over their membership of the EU, that Germany does not seem to trust their major partner in Europe to hold their gold

‘..Europe has given Britain two months to scrap its policies which prevent benefit tourists claiming billions of pounds in handouts..’

‘..European immigrants should be able to claim handouts and pensions without first having to pass a test proving that they have settled in Britain, the European Union has said ..’

Once again the European Union is issuing edicts without any comprehension of the impact, understanding of the eventual result or accountability; which seems to be par for the course with EU politicians and Brussels bureaucrats

Unfortunately this seems to be the way that the EU operates today, when virtually unelected politicians seek to impose their will and strengthen their ‘power base’ by including ever more disparate countries in the Union. An ‘ivory tower’ sending increasingly greater subscription costs to the membership, whilst rewarding themselves handsomely all round and ignoring the rest of Europe’s hardship or problems

How can countries with wildly different average incomes form part of any grouping without large number of the 'poorer' population moving to the 'richer' countries. Furthermore, the receiving countries have little control over their own borders because their rights have also been removed by the EU

Instead of addressing the real problems within the EU, which are too many and ranging to mention (corruption to financial), the politicians simply ‘march on’ with even more countries and regulations, which can only really end one way – badly. We now have the absurd situation where two proposed new entrants need bailouts before they even join the club – absolute nonsense.

Furthermore, it has now become questionable as to whether any of the countries ‘in bailout’ can ever (or ever wish to) repay their debts, which means that there will inevitably have to be future write-offs on a massive scale

Anyway, here are two solutions to the Social Security / Benefit issues, which should solve the problem, result in an equitable solution and prevent benefit tourism

Solution A

The EU could pass a regulation insisting that every country comes into line with identical Benefit hand-outs.

Either raise or lower the levels, it doesn’t really matter which route is chosen; just that benefits throughout the EU should be the same in every country and maintain parity. After all everyone insists on a single exchange rate so why not a single benefits rate?

Therefore, if the UK has benefits of £130 per week then so should Latvia and all the other EU countries. Alternatively Latvia etc. can maintain their £xx but UK and the rest of the EU should have to reduce their levels to come into line with Latvia - really very simple

Accordingly the position would be neutral and there would be no advantage in migrants polarising towards countries with the most beneficial Social Security systems because every country would offer the same benefits

Solution B

The UK banking structure has the concept of a ‘clearing system’, whereby all banks collect money owed to them from other banks in the system.

The EU needs to setup an equivalent system to the ‘banks clearing’ but on a country by country basis - The EU Country Clearing System.

Once this EU Country Clearing System has been created it would then be a simple matter for Benefit payments to be reclaimed by one country from the claimants country of origin directly.

This would ensure that migrants claiming benefits are not an undue burden on their country of residence which would be reimbursed by the claimants country of origin